All banks in Canada are governed by the Bank Act which is Federal legislation. B.C.'s BPCPA deals with business practices within the province only and among other things it governs debt collectors and what they can and cannot do. The Bank of Nova Scotia becomes a debt collector when they attempt to recover monies owed to them. Therefore, their collection practices fall under the regulations of the BPCPA.

While the bank may threaten Garnishment in any correspondence to your son's employer, Garnishment cannot occur until the creditor ( Scotia ) obtains a court order. As long as your son is making some payment towards the outstanding loan, even if the payments are late or are less than originally agreed to, the chances of Scotia suing your son and getting a court order are NIL. As long as a debtor is making some payment towards an outstanding debt, no judge in this country would issue a court order.

If you want to stop Scotia from constantly calling you, I would suggest that you send them a "Cease and Desist" letter. However, in order for this letter to be effective, you will have to provide a mailing address so that they can contact you or your son in writing. You can search the "Forum" on this website for excellent templates that you can use.

Good Luck and have a GREAT DAY

Hi footloose, thank you for your input.

Question= Are the banks regulated by BC`s BPCPA, or do they have another regulatory body they are required to answer to? Federal or Provincial?

< quote`(I strongly suggest that your son contact Scotia and try to resolve any outstanding issues. While it appears that your son is doing the best that he can under the circumstances, this needs to be communicated to the bank.)`unquote>

Thats what I was trying to say when he;

a) told them where he was working 9 months ago when he started this new job, and they had contacted his employer for verification, plus they discussed his late payments with them.
b) I am not a co-signer, but they kept phoning me even when I told them to stop.
c) he had recently been in contact with them(July) to make arrangements to temporarily increase the preauthorized payments out of his account which would have put his loan up to date as of Sept, even though it caused him extreme hardship.

For all I know they may continue to remove extra money out of his account, even though he would be up to date by now......we shall see......
He has always paid his loan and only defaulted temporarily due to job loss.

......and now they still continue with faxing the employer this letter that mostly talks about garnishment.

Before I discuss your situation, let me present the current legislation regarding debt collection in B.C. and more specifically contacting third parties and the debtor's employer.

The Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act [SBC 2004] Chapter 2, Part 7 ---- Debt Collection, Division 1 ---- Prohibited Debt Collection Practices provides the legal requirements for debt collectors.

116 (1) A collector must not communicate or attempt to communicate

with a debtor at the debtor's place of employment unless

(a) the collector does not have the home address or telephone
number for the debtor and the collector contacts the debtor

solely for the purpose of requesting the debtor's home

address or telephone number or both,

(b) the collector has attempted to contact the debtor at the

debtor's home address or telephone number, but the collector
has not contacted the debtor in any of these attempts, or

(c) the collector has been authorized by the debtor to

communicate with the debtor at the debtor's place of
employment.

(2) The collector must not make more than one verbal attempt , under
subsection (1) (b) to contact the debtor at the debtor's place of
employment.

(3) At the time a collector communicates with a debtor, the collector

must first indicate to the debtor

(a) the name of the creditor with whom the debt was incurred,

(b) the amount of the debt, and

(c) the identity and authority of the collector to collect the debt
from the debtor.

(4) A collector must not continue to communicate with a debtor

(a) except in writing, if the debtor

(i) has notified the collector to communicate in writing only,
and

(ii) has provided a mailing address at which the debtor may

be contacted,

(b) except through the debtor's lawyer, if the debtor

(i) has notified the collector to communicate only with the

debtor's lawyer, and

(ii) has provided an address for the lawyer, or

(c) if the debtor has notified the collector and the creditor that

the debt is in dispute and that the debtor would like the

creditor to take the matter to court.

117 (1) Except for the purpose of obtaining the debtor's home address
or telephone number, a collector must not communicate or

attempt to communicate with a member of the debtor's family,

or household, or a relative, neighbour, friend or acquaintance

of the debtor, unless

(a) the person contacted has guaranteed to pay the debt and

is being contacted in respect of that guarantee, or

(b) the debtor has authorized the collector to discuss the debt

with the person contacted,

(2) A collector must not communicate with a debtor's employer

except

(a) for the purpose of confirming the debtor's employment,

business title and business address, or

(b) for other purposes authorized in writing by the debtor.

From the information in your blog, it appears that Scotia (I assume you mean Bank of Nova Scotia) is doing nothing illegal. They certainly have a right to be able to contact your son and without an address or telephone number or a name and address of his lawyer, they will exercise all means available to them to secure this information.

As to the Employer Verification Request sent to your son's employer, the only information that the employer should provide is to confirm that your son is an employee of the employer, the employer's address and the title of your son's job. No other information is legally required to be supplied by the employer. There is no requirement that your son sign this form.

I strongly suggest that your son contact Scotia and try to resolve any outstanding issues. While it appears that your son is doing the best that he can under the circumstances, this needs to be communicated to the bank. Remember, the bank is in the "driver's seat". Failure to keep the bank updated may mean that future loan requests may be denied, or worse, they could seriously affect his credit score by making continuous hard inquiries on his credit file.

Good Luck and have a GREAT DAY

I will try to give details to the best of my knowledge.

My son has a high interest car loan through this Scotia division. He had lost his job approx a year ago and missed portions of payments ( the occassional bi-weekly payments while he was trying to find another job....total of 4 or 5 payments missed but still paying portions of monthly balance for a period of 3 to 4 months)...When he started a new job at the beginning of the new year, the payments went back to being consistent (approx. $550 per month) and when he could, he would pay extra to make up the difference from the missed payments. He`s almost caught with his extra payments having made arrangements with Scotia to remove X amount of $$$ from his account over and above the actual loan payments over a period of time. Money has been very tight and he discontinued his cell phone service because of the added expense. If family needs to get a hold of him for emergency we can call his roommates #. Because he cancelled his phone, Scotia hasn`t been able to call him directly, so they would contact his work, or contact me since they had my name as a reference wanting to know where he could be reached. I got tired of this so told them to stop phoning me, knowing he IS keeping up with his payments, and his work told them to stop calling since employees don`t receive calls (he works outdoors on different job sites) Now they have faxed to his employer an `Employment Verification Request` wanting the details of his personal info ie; address, phone#, employment position, hourly rate, any present garnishments, etc, and the bank want him as the employee to sign it and fax it back.

So here are my questions;

- Is this legal?
- is the employer liable or responsible in faxing it back to the bank?
- What are his options? The funny thing is if they wanted to start garnishment proceedings to get 20% (I think thats all thats allowed isn`t it) it would be much less then what they are getting now with the present payments.

- Is this just an intimidation/ harassment/embarrassment tactic?

- Are they just fishing for info that they have no right to collect?
- Is there any agency that he can complain to about their practices.

On my son`s behalf, I would appreciate any input, or any feedback from anyone that may have dealt with the same situation. Many thanks!